Actress Cate Blanchett has clarified her statements about dating women, insisting her comments were misconstrued.
The Oscar winner romances Rooney Mara in their new film Carol, which is based on author Patricia Highsmith’s controversial 1952 gay romance novel The Price of Salt, and in an interview with Variety, the Blue Jasmine star was asked if the role was her “first turn as a lesbian”, to which Blanchett replied, “On film or in real life?”
The Australian star then reportedly admitted to being in female relationships “many times”, noting she has “never thought about putting a label on sexuality”, but she now she claims the remarks attributed to her were taken out of context.
At the press conference for Carol at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday (17May15), she said, “From memory, the conversation ran, ‘Have you had relationships with women?’ and I said, ‘Yes, many times’. If you mean I’ve had sexual relationships with women, the answer’s ‘No’. But that obviously didn’t make it into print.”
She continues, “But in 2015, the point should be, ‘Who cares?’ I mean, call me old fashioned, but I thought that one’s job as an actor was not to present one’s boring, small, microscopic universe, but to raise and expand your sense of the world and make a psychological and empathetic connection to another character’s experience so that you could present something other than your own world to an audience.”
“My own life is of no interest to anyone else. Or maybe it is, I don’t know. But I’m certainly not interested in putting my own thoughts and opinions up there. Why I want to be an actor, why I love to be an actor is… the research. It’s finding out other people’s experiences and that youthful, intangible symbiosis in order to communicate it.”
Following Blanchett’s interview, Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh, insisted the actress’ comments were not misconstrued, writing, “When I asked Cate Blanchett if she’d had lesbian relationships in real life, she said: “Many times”. She was accurately quoted.”
